This was invaluable advice today, something I really needed. A few months ago, I got to my midpoint, a moment I was beyond thrilled to finally write…and things were not working. I realized I had to go back to the first plot point and rewrite from there. I’m glad to hear that you’ve struggled with this too!
Yes!!! I’ve had to do these things too, and it’s so satisfying to understand why something isn’t working and how it needs to be fixed. I had the thinking out loud thing several years ago when I realized I was focused too hard on keeping a book under a certain word count, and once I let that go...boom!
This friend is always happy to help brainstorm! Ahem.
Thanks for sharing your process when stuck. I also rely on looking backward often and brainstorming things with a friend/editor. Like you said, even if you don’t find a solution, maybe you have a better idea of what the solution might be... and you probably now know a few things the DONT/WONT work, which is sometimes key to finding what will.
Wow, Susan, what an incredibly helpful post. With all the craft info out there, I continue find your concept-by-concept, solution-by-solution discussions some of the most valuable.
I am in this spot right now and reading this was so validating to my recent decision to step back and do some hard thinking. After a lot of steady progress it feels like failure (at first) to come to a screeching halt right before the end of act 2 but I need to trust that intuition that something’s not right. Thank you for this!
This came at the perfect time for me! I’d spent a couple days avoiding working on my current draft and realized, after reading this, that is gotten off track. I was able to go a few scenes back and see where the emotional dominos stopped lining up and figure out what was going on. So thank you!!
This was invaluable advice today, something I really needed. A few months ago, I got to my midpoint, a moment I was beyond thrilled to finally write…and things were not working. I realized I had to go back to the first plot point and rewrite from there. I’m glad to hear that you’ve struggled with this too!
Yes!!! I’ve had to do these things too, and it’s so satisfying to understand why something isn’t working and how it needs to be fixed. I had the thinking out loud thing several years ago when I realized I was focused too hard on keeping a book under a certain word count, and once I let that go...boom!
This friend is always happy to help brainstorm! Ahem.
Thanks for sharing your process when stuck. I also rely on looking backward often and brainstorming things with a friend/editor. Like you said, even if you don’t find a solution, maybe you have a better idea of what the solution might be... and you probably now know a few things the DONT/WONT work, which is sometimes key to finding what will.
Wow, Susan, what an incredibly helpful post. With all the craft info out there, I continue find your concept-by-concept, solution-by-solution discussions some of the most valuable.
I am in this spot right now and reading this was so validating to my recent decision to step back and do some hard thinking. After a lot of steady progress it feels like failure (at first) to come to a screeching halt right before the end of act 2 but I need to trust that intuition that something’s not right. Thank you for this!
I loved this post SO much! Thank you for sharing this 😊"Feeling" a story truly does unlock doors.
This came at the perfect time for me! I’d spent a couple days avoiding working on my current draft and realized, after reading this, that is gotten off track. I was able to go a few scenes back and see where the emotional dominos stopped lining up and figure out what was going on. So thank you!!